Lost and found

Disclaimer: I only own Kyla and Colin.

Chapter 1

Kyla.

I was playing nervously with my ring, trying to calm myself down. I had never set foot in a prison before. Following the officer ahead of me, I looked all around me. Everything was dark here: the hallways, the greenish walls, people's faces...I turned my eyes towards the iron-barred windows through which some rays of sun were passing. I felt oppressed, in danger and I wondered how could inmates become better people in such a place. "It's here" the officer told me, bringing me out of my thoughts. I thanked him with a nod and sat down on the hard chair put at my disposal. I couldn't help fidgeting, sometimes sitting up straight, sometimes trying to adopt a more relaxed attitude. Since my childhood, I used to hide my feelings but now I had difficulty containing my nervousness. At last he appeared, in his grey baggy jumpsuit...

His eyes fell on me and I thought I saw a hint of resentment in his big blue eyes. But it was soon replaced by sadness and exhaustion. I also noticed that his face expression had become harder, colder. It had been a year and I didn't recognize him anymore. He sat down and stared at me as if he had also forgotten what I looked like. He picked up the phone on his left side and I did the same, as the atmosphere became tense, neither of us wanting to start talking. He was the one who broke the silence. He was right, we didn't have much time.

"How was your journey?"

I sighed. This sentence seemed so unreal, so out of place.

"Pretty bad, I don't like coach journeys. There was a fat woman sat next to me, who didn't stop chatting. I thanked God when she finally dozed off" I replied as I saw a faint smile playing over his lips.

"And I bet that you spent the rest of the journey listening to music and watching the landscape pass by, lost in your own little world. Let me guess: Jeff Buckley, Sting, Coldplay?"

"You know me so well..." I murmured, looking down.

This disturbing and irritating silence fell again. I had a question in my mind but I was too afraid to ask it, too afraid to hear the answer. As if he had read in my thoughts, he replied with a sweet smile as he used to do so many times before.

"I'm not mad at you..."

"I should've come earlier, I should..." I sighed, "I should never have left. I forsook you."

"I understand why you did that, I really do and I was 20 when you left New York, I was perfectly able to make it on my own..."

"Yeah, I can see that" I smirked.

He laughed gently, as if to tell me that the fact he was in jail didn't matter that much. I was angry with myself, feeling responsible for his situation. He was the one who broke the law but if I had stayed, it wouldn't have happened that way.

"Did you pay a visit to the parents?" he asked me hesitantly. The parents.

"Yes" was my only answer. I didn't want to broach this subject.

"How's Mum?"

"She thinks too much" I shrugged.

"And Dad?"

"He drinks too much"

He looked at me sadly. Nothing had changed since our childhood. Our father drank a lot and as for our mother she took all sorts of pills. A pill to sleep, a pill to lose weight, a pill to smile...a pill for everything. If she had found a pill to just live, our lives would have been a lot different. Ok, she wasn't happy but it didn't give her the right to have been so harsh on us. He looked down and clenched his jaw.

"They didn't come to see me..." he said.

I didn't reply, I wasn't much surprised.

"I disappointed them..." he added softly.

"You will get used to it, trust your screw-up of a sister" I laughed and so did he. The subject was closed. I glanced at the guard who was standing arms folded behind his back, his cold eyes sweeping around the room.

"How do you feel?" I asked him, staring straight at him.

"I'm fine" he looked away.

"Don't lie to me..."

If he knew me well, I knew him even better.

"I'm scared but if you show your weaknesses here, you might as well sign your death warrant," he answered as I felt a pang in my heart.

"You have trouble?"

He shook his head but I didn't believe him.

"Come on! You're skinny and as sweet as a brownie, you're an easy target. If you have trouble, tell me" I raised my voice, forcing him to tell me the truth. I had always protected him and I didn't want him to be hurt.

"I got a protector"

"What do you mean?"

"A guy protects me, he prevents the other inmates from hurting me. First time I took a shower here, there were two jerks who wanted to...you know, but this guy approached them and said that I was his. They left me in peace right away. I was scared to hell but he reassured me. He told me that as long as I stayed by his side, nothing would happen to me."

I listened to his story, my eyebrows frowned. I was skeptical.

"What does he want in exchange?"

"Nothing," he said but when he saw my I-wasn't-born-yesterday face, he hastened to add, "It's true. He said that I reminded him of his lil' brother. He's impressive but he's cool. He got a wife and two children. Besides you can see him, he's in the second visiting room on your right.

I moved back to see the man who was protecting my brother. Colin was right, he was quite impressive, prison life having left indelible marks on him. Only his stick-out ears gave a likeable side to him.

"He certainly has authority over the other inmates...And you trust this guy?"

"Yeah I do. He's clean Murphy, really"

I smiled. Murphy. I hadn't heard this nickname for a long time. It referred to my bad luck. However the latter had faded away since I had left New York.

"What's his name?"

"Rafael Alvarez but everyone calls him Rafi."

We kept talking about this and that during the rest of the visit. He wanted to know how my life in Detroit was and I summed up the last year spent in that city. Soon, too soon, a guard told us that it was time we left each other. Colin put his hand on the perspex glass and I covered it with mine. I had often seen people do it in the movies and now, I realized how important this simple gesture could be. He stood up and another guard took him back to his cell. I watched him go away, toughtful. My brother.

As I was heading towards the exit, I noticed that a man was leaving the visiting room of Rafael 'Rafi' Alvarez. He was the same age of me and had some features in common with my brother's protector. Probably his brother, I told myself. As soon as I was out of that damn prison, I took several breaths of air and stopped to feel the sun on my skin. I only managed to relax. The man I had seen a short while ago was there, busy with his cell phone. I approached him.

"Excuse me...huh...Do you know Rafael Alvarez?"

He looked at me and my heart started racing. He was absolutely handsome, especially in the lighting of this beautiful July day. My eyes lingered on his face, his eyes, his tanned skin, his lips...

"Yes, I'm his brother, why?" he frowned.

"I'm Kyla. Kyla Mayer"

"Danny Taylor" he said shaking my hand. That was the day I met Danny.

"My brother, Colin, is in jail and it looks like your brother is protecting him. Could you tell him, well, thank him for me, please?"

He raised an eyebrow, still gazing at me.

"Are you sure we're talking about the same man?"